1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connecting apparatus which is driven by receiving an inserted IC card, (smart card, memory card or the like) which is a media composed of a semiconductor element mounted on a thin material. The present invention also relates to an information processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, electronic business transactions and electronic banking have been put into practical use. Thus, a smart card which is an IC card containing a CPU is attracting attention as a key medium. However, it has a limitation in using it as a medium to record image data of photographs of identifications, signs, fingerprints, and the like, because the capacity of the smart card is as small as 0.5-32 kilobytes. For example, in holding digital signature (DSA) of a photograph of a face, a fingerprint, a voiceprint to authenticate a person in the smart card, the DSA has a limit in its size. Security is demanded to a higher degree in recent years in electronic banking and electronic business transactions because a greater amount of money is handled. It is difficult for the smart card to hold greater information as authenticating digital signature.
Recently, an IC card smaller than the smart card and having a greater storage capacity than the smart card is attracting public attention. The IC card is composed of a memory element and has an area half of the area of the smart card or smaller. In addition, the IC card has a storage capacity of 1MB-16MB or more. Thus, it can serve like a vehicle or a container of various kinds of digital data, such as documents, images, and the like.
In order to drive the IC card, it is necessary to contact a flat type connecting terminal thereof with an electrode of a reading/writing equipment side. The IC card has a problem that when the electrode has deteriorated mechanically owing to wear with age, reliability on the performance of contact between the IC card and reading/writing equipment side degrades. As described above, because in many cases, the IC card is used in electronic business transactions, electronic banking, and so on which should be made at a high degree of reliability. Thus, the degradation of the reliability is a big problem.
Currently, the utilization of computer networks such as Internet, Intranet, and the like has become very popular among enterprises, homes, and the like. Important information, confidential documents, business transaction information (electronic settlements of accounts, electronic money information) are increasingly handled on such an infrastructure. Thus, it has become more and more important to obtain security for hardware, software, and data constituting such a network. Above all, the smart card is popularly adopted as an ID card, electronic chart, patient's chart, and next generation credit card. Thus, a higher degree of security is demanded for user.